Last weekend was the debut of the brand new Donald's Dino-Bash! festivities in Dinoland USA, at Disney's Animal Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. We were there for the opening of the event, so I wanted to share it all with you here.

Let's start with taking at look at some of the decor, before we move on to PhotoPass, magic shots, food, the dance party, and of course the character greetings.

It's supposed to be the first day of spring, but of course as these things go, it's snowing here in the mid-Atlantic region, so I thought I would share with you some photos from this past winter's festivities at the Magic Kingdom (December 2017). I won't share everything we did at the Magic Kingdom, because it's fairly standard otherwise, but I thought the holidays would be a fun theme for this frigid first day of spring!
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In my continued effort to catch up on my reports, today I am going to share with you my photos from our amazing experience at the Disneyland Resort Thanksgiving Banquet.

The Thanksgiving Banquet was held on Thanksgiving day, November 2017, at the Disneyland Hotel. The Banquet was held in one of the main ballrooms, and required pre-booking at least 60 days in advance.

The main reason for us wanting to attend this experience is because in previous years they have had some really neat characters. While we didn't get anyone super rare at this one, there was a really good number of characters in attendance, including many of our favourites.

The food was pretty good, and was buffet style. We did have a server who brought drinks and saw to any requests we had. The buffet food was pretty good, and while there wasn't anything amazing for vegetarians, there was enough for us to eat.

For the money we paid (and while I don't recall the exact cost right now, it was certainly less than $100 per person), it was exceptionally good value. The sheer number of characters and the amount of time we spent there (at least four hours!), and the quality and quantity of the food, made it well worth it. Regular character meals can easily cost upwards of $60 per person these days, and the fact there were 18 characters at this meal made it phenomenally good value.

My only complaint is that the character lines were long (you lined up, as opposed to them coming to you), and they rotated without guarantee who you would get - hence why we spent four hours there! It took us three attempts of standing in line to get Horace, which was a little frustrating. However, the backgrounds were really nice, and well themed for Thanksgiving/fall.

Since it was several months ago now, I won't say anything more - so please enjoy these photos!
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Over three weekends in January and February DVC held another special Moonlight Magic event at the Magic Kingdom. I thought you would all like to see some photos from the characters we met at the event. The three hour event included some awesome long lost pals such as Little John, Koda and Kenai, the hyenas, and Herbie, plus more regular characters in special costumes, such as Chip 'n' Dale in their Rescue Ranger gear, Tiana and Naveen in their Royal Friendship Faire outfits, Donald and Daisy dressed for the Wild West, and Goofy and Pluto in their Mission Space suits.

I realise this is about 11 weeks late, but better late than never, right?

Back in December we attended the DVC Moonlight Magic event at Epcot. It was a fun evening with some great characters, but other than that, I don't have a lot to say about it at this point, since it was over two months ago, but I thought it would be fun to share some photos from the evening anyway.

We continue to be super busy here at Character Central, but I know that social media and the internet does a pretty good job of keeping everyone informed of the latest Disney developments, anyway. However, today I want to share with you an experience that we had just last week that we don't often hear about in the magical world of Disney - Disney's Vero Beach Resort in Florida.

We only visited for the day, so you won't find in-depth room reviews here, or dining at the main restaurant, but we did do the Goofy's Beachfront Breakfast character dining, and walk around the whole property, including the store, spa, and outdoor areas.

Disney's Vero Beach Resort is located in the town of Vero Beach itself, on the Atlantic east coast of Florida, about two hours south east of the Walt Disney World Resort. It's a fairly easy drive through vast stretches of central Florida farmland.
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In part one of this report I shared with you my thoughts and experiences around the main lobby, character dining, shopping, our room, the spa, fitness centre, conference centre and much more. In this second, concluding part I am going to share with you everything from character greetings, the pool area, lazy river, other dining and shopping options, the beach, and more!

Let's start where we left off in the last part, heading down to the Waikolohe Valley.

The Waikolohe Valley is where the majority of the fun and relaxation at Aulani happens. It's where the pool, the lazy river, more dining and bar options, snorkelling reef and several other features are located, not to mention being the access point to the beach, and where nearly all the character greetings occur.

Wandering around the valley you get to experience the beautiful natural flora and fauna of Oahu, and some of those all important Disney details.
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At the start of this month (September), Jon and I visited Hawai'i for the very first time, staying for a few days at Disney's Aulani resort in Ko Olina, Oahu.

As you can imagine, with anywhere we visit for the first time, there is going to be a lot for me to talk about. I'm going to try to break things down into themes and categories, as to not be jumping around too much. This report will also be in two parts because of the sheer length of it, and the number of photos I want to share.

I'm going to start with first impressions and our approach to the resort.
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